on hearing God
the first time I knew His response
The first time I "heard" God for myself, as an adult, was on a walk at the beach.
I wanted clarity and God wanted to remind me of His character. I asked for details and He reassured me of Himself. This has always been His way with me.
I want answers or explanations and He is the Word made flesh, dwelling in me.
I want to hoard manna and He is daily bread, meeting my needs.
I want to store up old wine and He is living water, matching my thirst. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I think 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 and so I'll keep my nose in the Word and my hands open, asking the God of heaven to supply what I need. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I can be a tired wife+mom and have all I need.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I can feel restless and know that there is a deeper place in me.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I can feel frustrated and know there is a "go-the-second-mile" life within me.
I can have all this human experience without ignoring or repressing it -- and come to find that Christ Jesus is always and ever enough for me.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
He will be enough for you, too.
Whether you’re still reeling from the last two years or feeling a burst of holy energy for the days ahead; whether you’re finding Him faithful and seeing His provision or feeling as though you are blind to it; whether it comes easy to you to profess His faith or it feels like slogging through a swamp to do so.
His faithfulness isn’t on you. It’s on Him.
It had been a long time since I “heard” God like that. Years and years of not having a sense of His answers to me and learning to trust different avenues for His response1. Years of feeling as though He was completely silent in the face of my prayers and pleading. I was inhabiting a silence that made me think I had completely missed the mark with my entire belief system because surely —surely— if it was all real, this wouldn’t be what God allows for His people, right?
Andrew Peterson wrote:
It's enough to drive a man crazy; it'll break a man's faith
It's enough to make him wonder if he's ever been sane
When he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven's only answer is the silence of GodIt'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God
And that’s how it felt for a long time. Silent and frozen and disorienting - like a terrible sea change had come and I wasn’t sure who I’d be on the other side of it all. And when the silence began to thaw, it didn’t happen all at once, like an avalanche of a holy outcry or one wild experience of God — it happened like …well, a thaw.
A slow melt, over years, where I began to sense His nearness or His pleasure in something that I hadn’t in a while. Being surprised by joy in a moment of beauty or being met by startling conviction in a moment of truth.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to see that God had not left (nor had I), but that He had allowed a quieting over me for reasons I have yet to discern.
If you’re in that season of silence or waiting — hold fast. Don’t lose heart or hope that God will make himself apparent to you again in the right time. Remember what you heard and learned on the mountain and know that it accompanies you in the valley, when the Good Shepherd seems absent. Know that you are walking with women and men who have heard and waited in silence and wondered, too. Know that God’s love isn’t altered by our perception of it. His nearness is a promise, even in the silence.
That’s all.
Just. Hold fast.
I’m glad you’re here,
Nothing bonkers like a soothsayer, you guys, just — trusting others who love God, trusting the veracity of His character and saving grace, leaning on the Body of Christ…